But apparently not violent or dangerous enough to warrant any further discipline from the NHL beyond the five-minute major and game misconduct Chara was assessed for interference.

Pacioretty, who will remain in hospital for observation, is lucky he is not paralyzed after suffering a non-displaced fracture of the fourth cervical vertebra on the play in front of the Bruins bench late in the second period. Chara stepped into Pacioretty as they had raced for a puck chipped out of the Montreal zone, riding him along the boards until Pacioretty's head collided violently with the stanchion at a 90-degree connection between two panes of glass separating the benches.

"After a thorough review of the video I can find no basis to impose supplemental discipline," NHL senior vice-president of hockey operations Mike Murphy said. "This hit resulted from a play that evolved and then happened very quickly -- with both players skating in the same direction and with Chara attempting to angle his opponent into the boards. I could not find any evidence to suggest that, beyond this being a correct call for interference, that Chara targeted the head of his opponent, left his feet or delivered the check in any other manner that could be deemed to be dangerous.

"This was a hockey play that resulted in an injury because of the player colliding with the stanchion and then the ice surface. In reviewing this play, I also took into consideration that Chara has not been involved in a supplemental-discipline incident during his 13-year NHL career."

There's only one person who can answer when it comes to Chara's intent, but that has not stopped people from examining the footage like the Zapruder film and projecting all kinds of motives. A split-second play often defies frame-by-frame analysis.

This play, the resulting injury and the non-suspension have become polarizing issues. Murphy is being lauded for getting it right or lambasted for not suspending Chara based on the resulting injury, if nothing else.

Some sort of suspension -- even a token one or two games -- was warranted if only because of the severity of the injury which was the result of an illegal play as judged by the officials.

While many of the Habs tiptoed around the issue of Chara's intent, the 23-year-old Price, who is rapidly emerging as a dominant personality in the dressing room, was blunt.

"Looking at the replay, it looked pretty blatantly obvious what was trying to be done there -- for me, personally," Price said. "It's pretty sad when you see somebody take somebody's life in their hands like that.

"It's a pretty scary injury when you're going full speed and you get your head pushed into the post. I've seen stuff like that happen at rodeos and it doesn't turn out too good. We're very lucky that hopefully he is going to be all right."

Defenceman P.K. Subban said he watched it once and couldn't watch it again.

Centre Scott Gomez was on the ice when it happened.

"What I remember about it was the sound: It sounded like a gun. Bang!" Gomez said. "Stuff like that is tough to look at."

The Canadiens will be grappling with the hit and its aftermath for a while -- and also with the absence of Pacioretty, who was emerging as a promising power forward. It sounded Wednesday like he will recover from his fractured verterbra.

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There wasn't much left of Daniel Briere's voice. The veteran Montreal Canadiens forward had been turned into a cheerleader, sitting on the Canadiens bench for most of the third period of their Game 7 victory over the Boston Bruins, cooling his heels despite having set up the crucial first goal two minutes into the game.